Regardless of whether you believe in the recession, you have to admit it's looking like lean times in laptop-land, with only a handful of products hitting the market this week.

But sometimes a handful is enough. Gamers will no doubt be satiated by news that the long-awaited Alienware Area-51 m17x is finally available for order, even if its starting price is a wallet-squeezing $2,199. Also for gamers, Asus dished the deets on its 17-inch G70 gaming laptop. Frequent travelers will be psyched that the Lenovo IdeaPad U110, a Best of CES Award winner, is officially available for purchase (stay tuned for our full review). And fans of princesses and cotton candy will be pleased to know that the Dell XPS M1530 and M1330 are now available in Flamingo Pink.

In reviews, we mostly dug the 14.1-inch HP Pavilion dv2700t Special Edition, which features a high-gloss, black-and-bronze finish, called "Verve." And we discovered that the Toshiba Satellite L355D was thoroughly average, but dirt cheap.

Also this week: we were amused by this faux commercial illustrating the key differences between the ThinkPad X300 and the MacBook Air; we eyed the $129 "Tube Stick", which turns your laptop into a TV with a basic DVR; we secured our laptop from theft, thanks to this slide show from PC World; and we contemplated moving to Canada so we could watch hockey all day and get a free Eee PC from RBC Royal Bank (though apparently your account has to be open and active until December 31 to qualify, so who knows when you'll see your computer).